Program 208: Evidence for Yahushua’s Existence

This program reviews the extensive evidence for Yahushua’s existence. Even non-Christian Bible scholars agree that he really lived.

Welcome to WLC Radio, a subsidiary of World’s Last Chance Ministries, an online ministry dedicated to learning how to live in constant readiness for the Savior's return.

For two thousand years, believers of every generation have longed to be the last generation. Contrary to popular belief, though, Christ did not give believers “signs of the times” to watch for. Instead, he repeatedly warned that his coming would take even the faithful by surprise. Yahushua urgently warned believers to be ready because, he said, “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” [Matthew 24:44]

WLC Radio: Teaching minds and preparing hearts for Christ's sudden return.

* * *Part 1: (Miles & Dave)

Miles Robey: Did Yahushua really exist? For most Christians, that’s an automatic, “Of course he existed!” But there’s a growing number of people today who are questioning whether or not Yahushua ever really lived and dismissing evidence they claim is “simply faith-based.” So what’s the truth?

Hello, I’m Miles Robey and this is WLC Radio.

Recently, I was surprised when someone shared that he’s been taking a serious look at whether or not Yahushua ever really lived. It took me by surprise because this close friend is a life-long Christian and yet here he’s wondering if Yahushua ever existed at all.

In order to understand his concerns, I started looking into the subject myself and was surprised to learn there’s actually a growing number of people who are claiming Yahushua never existed. So, today I’ve asked Dave Wright to take a look at the reasoning these people are using for denying the existence of Yahushua as well as share with us what evidence he believes proves Yahushua’s existence because, to be fair, it’s a legitimate question. If Yahushua truly existed, what’s the evidence for that? Is there evidence beyond blind faith?

Later, during our Daily Mailbag, Dave will explain how we can have confidence that our prayers are heard. Have you ever had the experience of feeling like your prayers just aren’t getting through to Yah? If you have, then you’re going to want to stay tuned for today’s Daily Mailbag. Elise O’Brien will then share a promise for those who struggle with feeling alone. I know you’ll want to hear that.

So. Dave. What can you tell us about all this? I have to ask: how did this even become a topic for discussion? Even people who don’t accept Yahushua as the Messiah, such as Muslims, admit he existed. So, where’s this idea coming from?

Dave Wright: Well, many people today are really digging into their beliefs. They want the truth. Satan doesn’t care what you believe, so long as you don’t believe the truth. You want to dig for truth? Fine. He’ll just make sure you go to one extreme or another. He doesn’t care so long as you miss the balance where truth really lies.

Miles: The devil has lies for every mind, doesn’t he? Can you tell us what sort of arguments are used to try and say Yahushua never existed?

Dave: There are a number of them. And one argument isn’t so much against Yahushua himself as it is against Christianity as a whole.

A man by the name of Kenneth Humphreys has a website in which he claims to “debunk” what he calls the “myth” of Yahushua. He’s quite well-spoken and has a number of articles trying to prove Yahushua never existed.

I’ve printed off a statement from his website I’d like you to read. It encapsulates his main points. Would you read this for us please?

Miles: All right. It says: “Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct. The nativity yarn is a concatenation of nonsense.”

Dave: Concatenation is the state of being linked together. Think of a chain. It can be a series of independent things all connected together.

Go on.

Miles:

With multiple authors behind the original gospel story it is no surprise that the figure of “Jesus” is a mess of contradictions. Yet the story is so thinly drawn that being a “good Christian” might mean almost anything.

The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimize the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin, that idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses. The pagan world knew all about virgins getting pregnant by randy gods …

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road.

Dave: All right. There’s quite a bit here to unpack, so let’s get started.

Part of what makes Humphreys sound logical and believable is that he’s mixed truth with error. For example, he says that “being a ‘good Christian’ might mean almost anything” which, when you see how many people twist Scripture and take things out of context, is a charge we can agree with. It doesn’t mean their beliefs are actually consistent with the weight of evidence, but we’ve all seen how you can get very contradictory beliefs, and appear to prove it from Scripture if you’re willing to quote things out of context.

Miles: Sure. Sure. That’s why the weight of evidence rule is so important.

Dave: But Humphreys doesn’t blame it on taking statements out of context. Instead, he says it’s due to the gospel story being “so thinly drawn.”

Miles: I mean, what does that even mean?

Dave: I assume he means that there are internal contradictions. And, again, this is very subtle error because it’s true: you can find alleged contradictions if you take things out of context. Truth itself, though, is not contradictory.

So basically, he claims the entire gospel story is a “mess of contradictions” that have been drawn from pagan sources. That’s his argument. He claims that scholars have known this for a couple of centuries but that “priestcraft” is Big Business so the churches keep it going even though they know differently.

Miles: I suppose the thread of truth there would be that we’ve seen how anyone whose pay cheque depends on teaching and supporting a set of particular beliefs is going to have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Dave: Correct. That part is true. What isn’t true is that he’s got the backing of scholars on this. That’s simply not true.

Miles: So we’re basically just supposed to take his word that Bible scholars have known for the last 200 years that Yahushua never existed?

Dave: Pretty much, yes.

Miles: What about the part where he says that Mary was drawn from pagan goddesses?

Dave: Again, an overstatement of the facts. Can parallels be drawn between the gospel accounts and various pagan goddesses? Sure, in a limited degree.

Remember, ever since Eden, Satan knew that Yahuwah would send a Savior. Ever since Abraham, he knew the Savior would be born a human through Abraham’s line.

Miles: Hmm. With that as a base line, it wouldn’t be too hard to extrapolate from there and plant the same basic concepts in counterfeit religions.

Dave: Easily.

Now one problem with Humphreys’ argument is that, while he admits many different authors contributed to Scripture, he looks at it as a whole.

Miles: What do you mean?

Dave: Well, he makes this sweeping claim that Yahushua never existed (and we’re just supposed to take his word for it) but then he discounts the accounts found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He collectively dismisses them because—collectively—they are in the Bible. This is a common tactic by unbelievers where they say you can’t accept what the Bible claims is true because it’s the Bible making those claims about itself.

But remember that Scripture definitely is a collection of various books and letters written by different people. Yes, it’s all collected into one place in our modern editions, but originally it was written by different people at different times. Even the gospels were written decades apart by different people. So to dismiss the gospels as separate proof of Yahushua’s existence simply because, in our modern Bibles, they’re all bound in one book, is disingenuous.

Miles: That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that before, but you’re right. We’ve got Matthew’s account, and Luke’s account, and Mark’s account: all written at different times. Sure, there’re similarities. That’s why they’re called the Synoptic gospels.

Dave: Of course there are similarities: they’re all talking about the same time span, the same events, and the same people. John takes it from a slightly different perspective, but his account, while focusing on different aspects of Yahushua’s life, also confirm that Yahushua was a real man.

Turn to 1 John chapter 1. I’d like you to read verses 1 to 4 and as you do so, keep in mind that in the first few centuries, these were simply different accounts of Yahushua. The books that make up the New Testament were floating around as letters and booklets from different sources but all focused on the same topic.

You have it? Go ahead.

Miles:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His son, Yahushua Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

Dave: John’s saying, “I’m writing to you about something I experienced for myself. My own eyes saw it; my own ears heard it; my own hands touched it. This is my own experience!”

This is an eyewitness account! It’s been collected with other eyewitness accounts to comprise a compilation we refer to as the New Testament, but these are all separate eyewitness accounts and should be accepted that way.

Miles: That’s a really good point. I’ve encountered this idea that the Bible isn’t an acceptable witness because it supports itself quite frequently. But then they talk out of both sides of their mouths because they also dismiss Scripture because it was written by so many different people.

Dave: The very fact that the Bible was written by so many different people across so many centuries, and that it agrees with itself as a whole is proof of its divine origin and truthfulness!

Let’s think of an example, ummm … uhhh … Pompei. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Now. Pliny the Elder, a Roman military commander, author and philosopher, was stationed with the Roman navy at Misenum at the time of the eruption. The story goes that he received word a friend of his had been stranded, so he boarded a galley and was rowed over to the coast near Herculaneum, a town near Pompeii which was also buried in the ash from the eruption. Unfortunately, instead of leaving that night as they should have done, they spent the night there. The next morning, when they tried to flee, Pliny lost his life. He was quite overweight, so it’s believed he had a stroke or heart attack. The rest of the party left his body and fled.

Twenty-seven years later, Tacitus, a Roman historian, asked Pliny’s nephew, known as Pliny the Younger, to write an account of his uncle’s death. He’d been just a teenager at the time of the eruption. Anyway, Pliny the Younger did what Tacitus asked. He wrote up an account of his famous uncle’s death.

Miles: How? He wasn’t there when it happened.

Dave: By interviewing the survivors.

Now, full disclosure: I’ve never read Pliny the Younger’s account of his uncle’s death, but we do know it was drawn from survivors’ accounts. I don’t know if he compiled them into one long narration, but let’s suppose all he did was simply interview them. We’ll say he interviewed 25 survivors. He interviews them, he writes down their separate statements, then he just collects them all into one scroll. How many witnesses does he have? One? Or twenty-five?

Miles: Twenty-five, of course.

Dave: Even though they’re all collected and written down in one scroll?

Miles: Of course. It’s still 25 separate eyewitness accounts.

Dave: That’s how it is with Scripture. Dismissing it as the Bible agreeing with itself overlooks the fact that the Bible is a compilation, written by many different authors, all agreeing to the same thing. And when it comes to eyewitness accounts of the life of the Savior, that’s a lot of eyewitness accounts!

Miles: True.

Dave: It’s a meritless argument to discount the various gospel accounts as reliable witnesses simply because, in our modern Bibles, they’ve all been compiled and collated into one bound book.

Miles: What about extra-Biblical sources? That’s one argument I encountered when I looked into this. Granted, I didn’t look into it as much as you have, but some people claim there are no extra-Biblical sources to back up the stories of the Bible.

Dave: There are. For example, take Flavius Josephus. He was a Jewish historian born around 37 CE.

Miles: So just a few years after Yahushua’s ascension.

Dave: He died around 100 CE which is believed to be the same time John the Beloved died, so his life spanned all the first-generation Christians, the apostles, and everyone who’d seen and known Yahushua personally.

I brought volume 2 of The Works of Flavius Josephus. Do you see the paperclip? Would you please turn there and read the paragraph I’ve marked?

Miles: Let’s see, uh … other side. It says:

Now, there was about this time [Yahushua], a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him are not extinct at this day.

Dave: I wanted you to read this one because it’s one of the clearest, most well-known statements. There are some people who claim that this was added later. My question is: how do they know? Further, we know from other extra-Biblical sources that Pilate did exist and Josephus wrote about him. Soooo … what? Are you really going to say he interwove a fairy tale in with his account of people that really lived?

In his Antiquities, Josephus also mentioned James, the brother of Yahushua. Now as you read this next quote, you’ll notice that there are two Yahushua’s mentioned. You’ll see how Josephus distinguishes between them. Here’s a copy. Go ahead.

Miles:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of [Yahushua], who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made [Yahushua], the son of Damneus, high priest.

Dave: “Yahushua” wasn’t an uncommon name back then. The equivalent in modern English would be Joshua. You know anyone named Joshua?

Miles: Several, in fact.

Dave: Okay. That’s what’s happening here. We’ve got Yahushua, the son of Damneus, and Yahushua, who was called Christ, the brother of James.

And there are more extra-Biblical sources, including Roman sources I want to look at.

Miles: All right. We’re going to take a quick break. Let’s look at those when we come back.

* * *

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* * *Part 2: (Miles & Dave)

Miles: You said there were other extra-Biblical sources?

Dave: Yes! Pliny the Younger. We talked about him in our last segment. About 110 to 112 CE, roughly ten years after the death of the apostle, John, Pliny sent a letter to Emperor Trajan. He was basically saying he didn’t know how others dealt with Christians but shared how he’d decided to deal with it.

I’ve got a copy of the letter here. Would you please read the paragraph by the asterisk?

Miles:

I have never been present at the examination of the Christians [by others], on which account I am unacquainted with what [used] to be inquired into, and what, and how far they used to be punished; nor are my doubts small, whether there be not a distinction to be made between the ages [of the accused]? and whether tender youth ought to have the same punishment with strong men? Whether there be not room for pardon upon repentance?” or whether it may not be an advantage to one that had been a Christian, that he has forsaken Christianity? Whether the bare name, without any crimes besides, or the crimes adhering to that name… be… punished? In the meantime, I have taken this course about those who have been brought before me as Christians. I asked them whether they were Christians or not? If they confessed that they were Christians, I asked them again, and a third time, intermixing threatenings with the questions. If they persevered in their confession, I ordered them to be executed; for I did not doubt but, let their confession be of any sort whatsoever, this positiveness and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished.

Dave: This is still overlapping first generation Christians. Ten years ago, were there still people alive that were around in the 1920s and ‘30s?

Miles: Some. They were old, but yeah. Even today there are some.

Dave: Same goes for when Pliny wrote to Trajan. You have to ask yourself: is it likely that there would be so many first- and second-generation Christians at this early date, overlapping the lives of those who had lived through the events of Yahushua’s public ministry, if he were just a myth drawn from a mishmash of pagan accounts?

Miles: Highly unlikely.

Dave: Tacitus, the historian that asked Pliny to write about his uncle’s death, referred to Christians in his Annals and Histories. I’ve got a copy here of a 1952 edition. Would you please turn to page 168 and read the bracketed section? He’s explaining how Christians were persecuted in 64 CE when Nero tried to blame them for the fire of Rome.

Miles:

To get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Dave: What I find fascinating about this quote is that Pliny was clearly not a fan of the Christians. He refers to Christianity as a “most mischievous superstition” and “evil.”

Now don’t you think someone like Pliny who clearly hated Christianity, don’t you think that if Yahushua never existed, he’d use that as an argument?

Miles: Absolutely. That’s the logical way to demolish a belief you hold in contempt. Prove it isn’t real.

Dave: Based on what mythicists today try to claim, Pliny should have said, “Hey, you’re all worshipping a mirage. A myth. A fairy tale.” But he didn’t. From the evidence available, he believed Yahushua really existed.

And he wasn’t the only one. Seutonius was a Roman historian who lived from about 69 to 122 CE—again, overlapping first generation Christians. In his book, The Twelve Caesars, he agrees with Pliny’s account of the fire of Rome. He says that after the fire, Nero blamed the Christians. He says, quote: “Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief.”

Again, where are the claims that Yahushua never existed?

Miles: Yeah, if you’re trying to discredit the Christians, that would be the logical argument to make. It would be easy.

Dave: Lucian was a second-century Roman playwright. In his play, The Passing of Peregrinus, he made fun of the early church, viewing it as simplistic and gullible for embracing … not a myth, but … a scoundrel. He makes a point of saying their leader was crucified in Palestine.

Why didn’t he mock them for worshipping a phantom or a fairy tale?

Miles: Because he believed Yahushua really existed.

Dave: Exactly.

In 2022, Lionel Messi was voted the #1 football player in the world. Now suppose, 2,000 years from now, there’s no public record of him preserved. But they do still have an autobiography of Kylian Mbappé, who was voted the world’s second-best player in 2022, and this autobiography talks about Lionel Messi and Mbappé’s fight to best him as the top seated player in the world. Two thousand years from now, they’ve even got mentions of Messi in diaries of those who saw him play. Just because, Messi himself doesn’t appear in any surviving official government records, does this mean that other people who knew him, who saw him play and wrote about it, aren’t to be believed?

Miles: No! This is history we’re talking about, not some scientific formula. Second-hand accounts are commonly accepted in historical accounts.

So what can you tell us about this claim that “historians have known for 200 years” that Yahushua didn’t exist? You say that’s incorrect. What do historians really believe about Yahushua?

Dave: When you first approached me about doing a program on this topic, I made a point of looking at this angle of it.

Have you heard of Bart Erhman?

Miles: Uh, well … no—uh, maybe? It sounds vaguely familiar.

Dave: Bart Erhman is a professor of the New Testament. He’s written some 30 books, six of which have made it to the New York Times best-seller list.

What’s interesting is that despite being a New Testament scholar, Erhman isn’t actually a Christian.

Miles: Seriously?

Dave: He’s not. He’s a well-known and respected scholar but he himself is not a Christian. So, I was curious to know if he’d written anything on the historicity of Yahushua. And what I found was that Erhman believes Christ did indeed live. In fact, one of his books is on this very topic. It’s called Did Jesus Exist?

Miles: Isn’t that interesting he believes Yahushua existed but he’s not a believer himself?

Dave: It is. And from his work in academia, he’s in a position to know what other scholars believe. It’s why he wrote the book. He told Guy Raz, a host on an American public radio program called All Things Considered, quote: “I wanted to approach this question as an historian to see whether that's right or not.” Unquote. And that’s exactly what he did.

Miles: What did he say specifically about the mythicists? That’s what you call those who believe Yahushua never existed, right? People who believe he’s just a myth are referred to as mythicists?

Dave: Yes. I was curious about that myself, so I’ve printed off several statements Erhman made. Let me get my hands on it here …

Here it is. Could you read those statements, please? They’re all from Erhman’s book.

Miles: Sure, uh …

From page 12 it says, quote: “Despite the enormous range of opinion, there are several points on which virtually all scholars of antiquity agree. Jesus was a Jewish man, known to be a preacher and teacher, who was crucified (a Roman form of execution) in Jerusalem during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea.”

Page 96: “The idea that Jesus did not exist is a modern notion. It has no ancient precedents. It was made up in the eighteenth century. One might as well call it a modern myth, the myth of the mythical Jesus.” Unquote.

That’s interesting.

Dave: On page 20 he says, quote: “It is fair to say that mythicists as a group, and as individuals, are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in the field of New Testament, early Christianity, ancient history, and theology.” Unquote.

Sure, maybe 200 years ago, people coming out of centuries of darkness and religious oppression, influenced by the writings of Voltaire and others, may have questioned whether or not Yahushua ever truly existed.

But there have been so many archeological and historical discoveries since then. The preponderance of evidence available today supports Yahushua’s existence. So, the idea that he didn’t? That’s an out-of-date idea.

Miles: Earlier we were talking about extra-Biblical evidence. Does Erhman address whether or not any Roman writers talk about Yahushua?

Dave: He does talk about that. Let me find it here …

Okay. Start reading there. Page 43 where it’s marked.

Miles: “It is also true…that no Greek or Roman author from the first century mentions Jesus. It would be very convenient for us if they did, but alas, they do not. At the same time, the fact is again a bit irrelevant since these same sources do not mention many millions of people who actually did live. Jesus stands here with the vast majority of living, breathing, human beings of earlier ages.”

Dave: Turn the page?

Miles: “If an important Roman aristocratic ruler of a major province [Pontius Pilate] is not mentioned any more than that in the Greek and Roman writings, what are the chances that a lower-class Jewish teacher (which Jesus must have been, as everyone who thinks he lived agrees) would be mentioned in them? Almost none.” Unquote.

That’s interesting.

Dave: Erhman goes on to say, quote: “[F]rom Roman Palestine of the entire first century we have precisely one, and only one, author of literary texts whose works have survived… That one author is Josephus.” Unquote.

According to Ehrman, Josephus does talk about important facts surrounding Yahushua’s life and death. So, he does accept Josephus as evidence in support of the real existence of Yahushua.

Miles: But what about Philo? He was a Jew.

Dave: Yes, but he wasn’t from Palestine. He was living in Alexandria, Egypt. Erhman opines it’s unrealistic to expect Philo wrote about Yahushua since it is unlikely Christianity had even reached Alexandria by the time of his death, less than 20 years after Yahushua’s death.

Miles: Hm. Good point.

Dave: The idea that we need to have all these first-century writers talking about Yahushua as proof that he truly lived is really illogical. Think about: in Yahushua’s day, only about 3% of Jews were literate. The Romans in Palestine were concerned with their own agenda, not what some Jew was doing. So, it’s unrealistic to find lots of extra-Biblical writings about Yahushua. But as we saw earlier, we do have Pliny the Younger, Seutonius, and Lucian: all Roman writers, all writing about the first-generation Christian church.

Miles: As well as the eyewitness accounts compiled in the New Testament.

Dave: Right. So, it’s inaccurate to claim Yahushua never existed, and to dismiss the stories of his life by trying to claim they’re based on pagan myths? That’s not consistent either because, according to Erhman, there is no evidence that the Jews of Christ’s day worshipped pagan gods. Yahushua’s teachings, as recorded in Scripture, are deeply rooted in Israelite traditions, not Roman.

Miles: You know, a thought that struck me was the oral tradition nature of early Christianity. We know that the gospels weren’t actually written down for several decades after Christ’s death, and yet there were already first-generation Christians being martyred. If Yahushua were indeed merely mythical, how could news of him have spread so quickly, to the point that people—first generation believers—were already willing to die for that belief?

Dave: Another excellent question. Believers came from somewhere. They burst on the scene with incredible zeal. That doesn’t come from believing a fairytale drawn from a mix of pagan sources.

Miles: Not to mention that Christ’s message itself wasn’t aligned with the pagan sources it was supposedly drawn from.

Up next: our Daily Mailbag, where Dave will be explaining how you can have confidence that your prayers are being heard. Stay tuned!

* * *

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* * *Daily Mailbag (Miles & Dave)

Miles: Today’s question is coming from the country that has the world’s second largest film industry.

Dave: I’m going to go with … the United States.

Miles: Bzzzzzz! No free DVD for you!

Dave: What?? Bollywood—India—produces more films than Hollywood.

Miles: Yes, but that doesn’t make the US the world’s second largest film producer. That honor goes to … Nigeria!

Dave: Seriously! Wow. I didn’t know that.

Miles: Yep. Nollywood is second only to Bollywood as the world’s largest film producer. They produce about 50 movies a week—

Dave: Wow!

Miles: –which is considerably more than what Hollywood produces.

Dave: Again: wow.

I recently read that Nigeria has Africa’s largest economy, somewhere over $475 billion in GDP.

Miles: My turn: wow!

Okay, so. Adedayo Kuti writes: “Greetings, brothers, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Yahushua! How can I have confidence that my prayers are actually being heard? It feels so often when I pray that my prayers just circle around the room. How can I gain confidence that Yahuwah really is hearing and answering my prayers?”

Dave: I really like this question. It’s sooo relatable. I think we’ve all had the experience where it seems our prayers float up to the ceiling … only to ricochet back down to us.

There are a couple of points to bear in mind when praying. First, your confidence is not in your ability to speak eloquently or … emotionally loudly enough for Yahuwah to hear. It’s not in how deserving you are. Your confidence isn’t even in how needy you are. Your confidence is in His willingness to hear and answer the prayers of His children. And He is very willing.

Yahushua explained this in Luke 11. Let’s turn there and read verses 9 to 13.

Miles:

So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

Dave: Here, Yahushua is drawing a distinct parallel to earthly fathers and he’s making a profound point: if we, as the sinful human beings we are, know how to be kind to our kids, if we know to love them and provide for their needs, how much more is our heavenly Father going to give the Holy Spirit as well as provide for the material needs of His earthly children?

Now, I know for some people who never had a loving father, this isn’t such a ringing endorsement. If your father was abusive, if he had a short temper, if you saw him hauling off and hitting your mum, if he ridiculed his kids, verbally belittling them … all of these are forms of abuse and they can make it difficult for even an adult to refer to Yahuwah as “Father.”

If that’s the case for you, there’s another passage that might be easier to relate to and that’s Isaiah 49 verses 15 and 16. Could you please read that?

Miles:

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. [Isaiah 49:15-16a]

Dave: If neither of your parents loved you and protected you, cared for you the way you deserved, then picture Yahuwah as the parent you always wanted. He’s all that and so much more.

Miles: Jeremiah 31:3: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

Dave: I love that verse. It’s so beautiful.

Again, let your confidence that your prayer is heard rely on Yahuwah’s proven character: He loves you. He has repeatedly invited us to take our cares and concerns to Him. He wants us to pray! In fact, He takes personal pleasure in answering our prayers, just as loving parents enjoy helping their child.

I’ve got here a quote I came across some time ago from a Christian writer … let me pull it up on my monitor really quickly…

It’s one of the most beautiful commentaries on Yah’s willingness to answer prayer that I’ve ever read. Here … can you see that? Could you read that for us?

Miles:

Let all who are afflicted or unjustly used, cry to [Yahuwah]. Turn away from those whose hearts are as steel, and make your requests known to your Maker. Never is one repulsed who comes to Him with a contrite heart. Not one sincere prayer is lost. Amid the anthems of the celestial choir, [Yahuwah] hears the cries of the weakest human being. We pour out our heart's desire in our closets, we breathe a prayer as we walk by the way, and our words reach the throne of the Monarch of the universe. They may be inaudible to any human ear, but they cannot die away into silence, nor can they be lost through the activities of business that are going on.

Nothing can drown the soul's desire. It rises above the din of the street, above the confusion of the multitude, to the heavenly courts. It is [Yahuwah] to whom we are speaking, and our prayer is heard.

It is Satan's work to fill men's hearts with doubt. He leads them to look upon [Yah] as a stern judge. He tempts them to sin, and then to regard themselves as too vile to approach their heavenly Father or to excite His pity. The Lord understands all this. [Yahushua] assures His disciples of [Yahuwah’s] sympathy for them in their needs and weaknesses. Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father's heart.

The Bible shows us [Yahuwah] in His high and holy place, not in a state of inactivity, not in silence and solitude, but surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of holy intelligences, all waiting to do His will. Through channels which we cannot discern He is in active communication with every part of His dominion. But it is in this speck of a world, in the souls that He gave His only-begotten Son to save, that His interest and the interest of all heaven is centered.

[Yahuwah] is bending from His throne to hear the cry of the oppressed. To every sincere prayer He answers, “Here am I.” He uplifts the distressed and downtrodden. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. In every temptation and every trial the angel of His presence is near to deliver. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father's notice. Satan's hatred against [Yahuwah] leads him to hate every object of the Saviour's care. He seeks to mar the handiwork of [Yahuwah], and he delights in destroying even the dumb creatures. It is only through [Yahuwah’s] protecting care that the birds are preserved to gladden us with their songs of joy. But He does not forget even the sparrows. “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

Hmmm. That is really moving.

Dave: I especially like that part where it says Yahuwah is bending forward, so eager to hear and answer the prayers of His children.

Miles: I do, too. I remember once where I was going through a really tough time, spiritually. It’s like our letter writer described: it felt like my prayers just weren’t getting through.

Then, one day, I did something different. I thought about every description we have of Yahuwah, that men and women were made in His image, that light and pure energy flow from His body, that His hair is white and glistening and, as I prayed, I envisioned that in my mind. I pictured Him as listening with a loving smile on His face, interested in what I had to say. And wow! What a difference! I can honestly say it transformed my prayer life.

Dave: That’s wonderful. Remember Yahuwah wants you to pray. He enjoys hearing and answering your prayers because He loves you.

Miles: Amen!

All right, we’ve time for one more quick question. Now, I’ll confess to our hearers I’ve let Dave cheat a little bit on this one. Instead of springing it to him live on air, I gave him a heads up on this question before because it’s such an unusual question and I wasn’t sure if there was even an answer, but it intrigued me. Sophie from Randers in Denmark writes: “I know we say the devil was defeated at the cross but is there any way that he could still win?”

Dave: Yeah, I’m glad you gave me some time to think about this, because I really had to. At first glance, I’d say there has never been a chance for the devil to win. You think about it, and what would his “winning” entail? Well, he’d have to turn everyone against Yahuwah.

Then what?

Then all the holy unfallen beings?

Miles: He seemed to gain some ground right at the first when some of the holy angels fell for his lies.

Dave: Sure. But with time, his lying has been unmasked. So now, what would victory look like? There’s really no way he can truly win because even if he could get the entire human race, and all the holy unfallen beings to turn against Yahuwah, he still couldn’t “win” because he does not have the Creator’s ability to give and sustain life. If he kills Yahuwah, then he and everyone else ceases to exist.

Miles: And if he turned everyone against Yah? What would happen then?

Dave: Well, I’m not going to pretend to have divine wisdom, but from a human perspective, I would guess that if he actually managed to turn everyone against Yah, then Yahuwah would do the only thing a loving Father could do: He would withdraw life from those who were miserable. As a loving Father, why would He continue to prolong suffering by prolonging life? He prolongs life now so that people have the chance to choose, but if everyone—including all holy beings—turned against Him, He’s not going to condemn them to eternal suffering just because they chose wrongly. I can see Him withdrawing life to end the suffering caused by sin.

And then … well, it’s anyone’s guess, but knowing the love in His heart with everyone and everything gone, I can imagine that He Himself, with a breaking heart, would simply cease to exist, if that were possible. Why would He want to go on?

Miles: So Satan truly can’t ever really win.

Dave: Well, yes and no. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Satan can’t win in a universe where Yahuwah does not exist. So, in order to “win,” as you put it, all Satan has to do is not lose.

Miles: Come again?

Dave: To “win” to whatever extent he can, all Satan has to do is not lose. In other words, all he has to do is keep people deceived, keep people distracted from the truth, keep them in limbo so they never make a definite choice, and he effectively delays Yahushua’s return.

Can we delay Yahushua’s return? Well, Christians always talk about hastening his return. So if it’s possible to hasten his return, I suppose it’s possible to delay it. And the way that’s done is for everyone to continue playing around with sin, not make a firm decision one way or another. That delays his coming. He’s not going to come before everyone has made a choice.

So, in that limited sense, all the devil has to do to win, is to not lose: to distract people from making a decision and that’s where our personal responsibility comes in. We need to take personal responsibility for making our choice and for spreading Yahuwah’s loving light so that others are drawn to Him and can make their decisions, too.

Miles: Huh! I never thought of it that way before. But that really emphasizes how important it is to take spiritual things seriously, to not play around with sin.

If you’ve got a question or comment, just go to WorldsLastChance.com and click on Contact Us. We really enjoy hearing from you.

* * *Part 3: (Miles & Dave)

Dave: I’d like to take just a few minutes to talk about faith in the context of today’s discussion. As Christians, we tend to focus our discussions on faith: what it is, what it means to our spiritual walks, how to get more … all that. But sometimes we talk about faith to the point that unbelievers accuse us of having a belief system built on nothing but blind faith with no evidence whatsoever.

That’s not understanding that faith itself is built on evidence.

Miles: How so?

Dave: Well, when you know the definition of faith, then the term “blind faith” is really a misnomer.

What’s the definition of faith?

Miles: It’s taking someone’s word for something as true based on your knowledge of the person’s trustworthiness. You don’t need any other proof. That’s faith, so I’m not seeing where you get any evidence from that.

Dave: Well, no. There is no “empirical proof” when you’re talking faith. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no evidence.

We tend to use “proof” and “evidence” synonymously, but they’re not the same. I’ve printed off a couple of definitions here. Would you please read those for us?

Miles: Sure! Uh, let’s see …

Proof: “A fact or piece of evidence that shows something is true.”

And for evidence it says, quote: “A thing or set of things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment. Something indicative; an indication or set of indications.”

Dave: All right. So now take the definition of “faith.” It is belief based on what you know of another person. You assess that what he says is true based on your knowledge of his character. You know he’s trustworthy and will never lie. This isn’t empirical proof, but it is, by definition, evidence.

You’re not going to blindly trust a stranger’s word for anything, are you?

Miles: Of course not!

Dave: I mean, if you do, we might have to question your intelligence! But Christians know they can safely accept Yahuwah’s word for everything because of what we know of His character.

He's loving: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn thee.” [Jeremiah 31:3]

He’s kind. Luke 6:35 says that Yah is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

Miles: He forgives us?

Dave: Absolutely! Ephesians 4:32 says “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as [Yah] in Christ forgave you.”

He’s also compassionate. Isaiah 54:10 says, “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says Yahuwah, who has compassion on you.”

Miles: A big one to me is that Yahuwah doesn’t judge us. We tend to view Him as this big, scary judge, but John 5:22 says “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the son.”

Dave: And we know from Christ’s words to the woman caught in adultery, what he does with that trust. He says, “Neither do I condemn you.” So you combine everything we know about the Father’s character, and you look at it in light of what He has to say about Yahushua through His word: that He sent His own son to save us, that seeing the son is seeing the Father, that is evidence.

Is it a carefully preserved birth certificate? No.

Miles laughs: Penned on crumbling parchment or chiseled into rock?

Dave: But we don’t need that because we all have, in our own individual experiences, evidence that Yahuwah is loving, kind, compassionate and that He doesn’t lie. So that right there is sufficient evidence for our faith to believe, and that includes that Yahushua really existed.

Miles: And that’s the best kind of evidence because it’s based on our own personal experience. We can know for ourselves that Yahuwah’s word can be trusted because, in our lives, He’s always proven trustworthy.

Please join us again tomorrow, and until then, remember: Yahuwah loves you . . . and He is safe to trust!

* * *

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This program and past episodes of WLC Radio are available for downloading on our website. They're great for sharing with friends and for use in Bible studies! They're also an excellent resource for those worshipping Yahuwah alone at home. To listen to previously aired programs, visit our website at WorldsLastChance.com. Click on the WLC Radio icon displayed on our homepage.

In his teachings and parables, the Savior gave no “signs of the times” to watch for. Instead, the thrust of his message was constant … vigilance. Join us again tomorrow for another truth-filled message as we explore various topics focused on the Savior's return and how to live in constant readiness to welcome him warmly when he comes.

WLC Radio: Teaching minds and preparing hearts for Christ's sudden return.